The End of Silence
by nb41
Summary: So why was Jim so adamant that Bones leave him alone on the trip to Qo'noS? Tarsus IV in the AOS. Spoilers for Star Trek: Into Darkness.
1. The End of Silence - Ch 1

**Notes**

A friend of mine had a notion based on Kirk skipping out on his medical exam the morning after Daystrom and refusing medical attention from McCoy during the trip to Qo'noS. I let that percolate for a while and came up with this.

It's meant to be compatible with the canon of the movies, but is AU to them in the sense of assuming that Qo'noS is not 90 seconds of warp time from Earth.

Additionally, since the Tarsus IV famine is hard to reconcile with the AOS notion of Way Fast Warp, I completely resurfaced it for my own purposes. We don't know if New!Kirk even got to experience that particular bit of history, nor how that would play out in the new timeline. I decided to riff off the groove suggested by Marcus' presented motivations in STID.

Since I am not a virologist nor a medical doctor by trade, please consider checking your disbelief at the door, though I did try to make it fun to read.

Neets, this is all your fault.

This is complete, so any updates will be edits to preserve my sanity.

* * *

He'd thought ordering McCoy to report to medbay would buy him some time, but the second he stepped out of the turbolift and made down the hall for his quarters he found McCoy walking side-by-side with him.

"Doctor." He tried to make his voice sound like a warning; as usual, McCoy ignored it.

"We need to do a full workup before we get there."

"No we don't."

"Are you really planning on going in to a combat situation without me having so much as a look at you?"

He started to reply, but a sharp twinge in his throat made him suck in a breath rather than speak. The sensation spread to his chest, and he coughed hard, coming to a sudden halt in the hallway.

"Jim?"

His throat wasn't working right; in fact it felt closed. He coughed again and managed to get some air into his lungs.

"_Jim_."

"Bones-" The ship lurched under him. No, _he_ was doing the lurching, right into the wall. In an instant McCoy had his communicator in one hand and the other on Jim's arm, his grip firm. He began steering him back towards the turbolift.

"McCoy to medical, I need a full Sage-Karga series prepped right now."

"Doctor I'm not sure we-"

"We have it, it's in freezer K10, get it out and loaded."

"Absolutely Doctor."

Jim paused and doubled over, coughing so hard his bruised ribs protested. It was still a dry cough, but it was getting harder to breathe. _Bad, bad, this is bad_...

"Hang in there, you idiot," McCoy growled as he helped Jim straighten up. "The lift's right here." And thankfully, it wasn't occupied. Jim sagged against the wall and tried to concentrate on McCoy's voice. A piece of equipment chirped when McCoy ran it across Jim's forehead. The sharp pain in his lungs eased for a brief moment, and he panted.

McCoy scowled at the results on his tablet. "What was your count this morning?"

Jim coughed again. "Two-sixty."

"Two-_sixty_?" The lift doors opened to the med bay, and Dr. Bakunda rushed forward to help McCoy. To her credit, she only blinked when she saw who they were supporting to a bed, and betrayed no other reaction. The tray with its set of seven, color-coded vials sat ready to go; Jim was vaguely aware of McCoy grabbing his injector and loading the first one.

"You ready?"

He tried to steady his breathing. When he managed to get three breaths in a row without hacking, he nodded.

He'd only ever needed the shot series once-just after the _Enterprise_ had been towed back from the middle of nowhere in the wake of defeating Nero-and it had hurt like hell. He steeled himself, and was glad he didn't make any noise throughout the ordeal. As the euphoria and disorientation of the medication washed over him, McCoy pushed him back on the bed. Jim wanted to stay sitting, yet found he lacked the ability to react to anything going on, and so settled for laying where he was. Through the gray haze clouding his thoughts he heard McCoy making a variety of requests of his staff.

"I need a full panel on him plus a CZV titer. I want another set of SKS prepped, but keep it in the freezer. Get out the SV-100 antiviral, it's in the red case at the back of G15."

Several minutes passed before his perception widened enough to include things outside his reaction to the medication. McCoy was working in one of the storage freezers; he shut it and came over to Jim when he sat up.

"This is why you didn't come in for your exam this morning, isn't it."

Jim huffed a breath in reply. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the blood test results decorating a wall data display. "What's it at."

"Three fifty-two."

_Shit_. Jim shut his eyes and steadied himself. "Can SN-20 get me back under three hundred?"

"It could." McCoy's tone made the response a threat.

"Quickly?"

"Only if we go with the maximum dose."

He ran a hand through his hair. "Alright. Do it."

"Jim, the virus is already in a progression stage, we need to start a course of SV-100 before-"

"SV-100 takes weeks," Jim said, with more force than he'd intended, and he regretted it on the instant. He lowered his voice and forced himself to calm down; this wasn't McCoy's fault, after all, and he needed to conserve his strength. "I don't have that kind of time. I need to be back on my feet before we get to Qo'noS."

"How long do you expect to be _on_ your feet if all you do is run out and chase this Harrison guy while trying to dodge Klingons?"

"Long enough to catch him."

"SN-20 isn't-"

"_Bones_."

McCoy stared at him hard. Jim was vaguely aware that some of the staff were casting furtive looks at them, but he kept his eyes on McCoy.

Their staring contest didn't last long. McCoy cursed under his breath and stalked back to the cold storage panel, taking the single vial that had been sitting out with him. As he put that container back and pulled out a set of three, he said over his shoulder, "We might not be able to do a round of SV-100 after this."

Jim looked down at his lap. "Yeah."

McCoy sighed and shut the panel. He loaded the first vial into his injector. "You're a real bastard, you know that?"

"Sorry."

McCoy's laugh was bitter. "No you're not. If you were, you wouldn't be doing this to yourself."

"He killed Pike." Jim quashed another surge of anger. "I'm not letting him get away with that."

"So now he gets to kill you too?"

When he looked at McCoy, he was surprised to see regret and resignation instead of anger. That took some of the fight out of him. "Maybe he's making it happen sooner, but he's not the one killing me."

Jim saw McCoy hold something back. He rather thought he knew what it was, and hoped that when this was all over he'd remember to apologize for right then (and for the entire time they'd known one another).

With a shake of his head, McCoy started the shots. Unlike the symptom medication, the antivirals didn't have much of an immediate impact on Jim, and once they were done McCoy said, "Get some rest. It'll come down faster if you're not running around."

"Okay."

McCoy went to speak to his assistants; though he kept his voice low, Jim was sure he heard orders to keep everything they'd just overheard confidential.

Jim laid back on the bed and stared at ceiling, and thought of the hundreds of other hospitals and medbays he'd been in ever since Tarsus IV.


	2. The End of Silence - Ch 2

The dirty secret of Tarsus IV was that Section 31 had used it to hide their store of biological weapons in response to a wave of Federation inquiries. They varied from the leftovers of abandoned projects to deadly monstrosities made for wiping out an enemy's entire populace. Tribunals or no, Section 31 didn't believe in throwing knowledge away, so a handful of silos filled with canisters and cryogenic freezers dotted the colony's underground landscape, hidden beneath the gray-brown rocks and dirt and connected by a series of deep-bored tunnels.

None of the colonists knew this; their presence was just a convenient cover story Section 31 used to justify their not-infrequent trips to the distant, desiccated planet. It was well outside of the usual warp lanes, and the closest starbase was a good four days out in the fleet's fastest ships.

Of course, not everyone on Tarsus IV was a colonist, and Section 31's babysitter for the Tarsus IV classified weapons depot was a brilliant computer scientist named Jacob Kodos. It was a dead end job, one he'd been maneuvered into by political enemies, and he was ever watchful for an opportunity to prove himself worthy of a promotion back to R&D.

With his wife dead, his daughter Leonore, an up-and-coming engineering prodigy, accompanied him on the assignment. She didn't mind, not really; there were numerous opportunities to learn on Tarsus IV. She always felt her father never took her concerns seriously though, and that feeling only grew in time. Thus was she also on the lookout for a chance to prove herself.

One cold, windy day in 2246, the universe obliged them.

* * *

Tarsus IV was a good planet to study, but it would never be a long-term colony absent some truly radical terraforming, due to the one thing it lacked: water.

This wasn't an insurmountable obstacle for the purposes of dropping off several thousand researchers and engineers; the Federation had water reclamation down pat, and only needed to resupply a colony like Tarsus IV every few months. It would take a significant disaster for there to be any risk related to the water supply, or so the Admiralty thought.

The investigations into the explosion would never yield conclusive results, but the favored theory involved a miscalibrated power cell and some blown fuses. The initial blast took out the microfiltration plant itself, leaving half of it a smoking crater, and the subsequent fires destroyed three of the colony's five holding tanks, bleeding their precious and irreplaceable water supply into the bone dry ground. (No one had thought to leave them a ship capable of finding and towing a suitable space rock with enough ice-content to hold them over for such occasions, but later this would be standard for all deep space colonies.)

The two remaining tanks would hold them for six days under the strictest rationing possible. A vessel which could make the trip from _Deep Space 1_ to Tarsus IV in less than that wasn't due at the station for another week.

* * *

By the time the _Montenegro_ arrived-ten days ahead of schedule, but not soon enough-half of the colonists, almost four thousand in total, had died of a mysterious, stroke-like illness that seemed tailor made for the task. The source of it was unexplained to all but Section 31, whose archivists could give the precise silo, floor, row, and shelf that particular container had been sitting on. When they tried to contact the operative in charge of maintaining the Tarsus IV Depot, there was no response. Lacking any idea of what was going on, they cobbled together a convenient fiction involving eco-terrorists which the Admiralty was willing to swallow (thanks to the efforts of one Admiral Marcus). When they finally managed to put a new operative on Tarsus IV, they could find no trace of Jacob Kodos or his daughter, nor any indication of where they'd disappeared to.

The _Montenegro_'s security team eventually found the source canister for the responsible contaminant at the water distribution trunk for T-block. That prompted a search of the entire water system, and another canister was found, this time at the N-block distribution trunk. The initial tests indicated it had held something very different than the first canister.

For the previous year of their lives, Kevin Riley and Jim Kirk, thick as thieves and trouble-makers of the highest caliber, had called N-block their home.

* * *

"Don't drink too much too fast."

Jim tried to slow down, but it wasn't easy with his body insisting every last drop of liquid within reach be consumed on the instant. He was certain the doctor had no idea how he and Kevin felt after finally getting water for the the first time in over a day.

Kevin was pacing himself with bites of food in between drinks. Jim tried to emulate his friend, who hadn't been warned yet (and was also a good third of his glass behind).

They were dehydrated enough, the doctor explained, that they needed to be careful in what they ate as well as drank. This meant the food was somewhat bland, but Jim had no complaints as long as water was on the menu too.

They were both utterly filthy, as they'd seen no reason to suspend their personal exploits in the face of impending doom-time and old, abandoned subspace arrays waited for no one-no matter that all water washing of any kind had been suspended. (There were the alcohol sanitizers, but they burned horribly, so they used them under only duress.) The dust of Tarsus IV was the perfect combination of shades to make a mess of anything it touched: Kevin's black skin was rendered chalky by the fine layer he'd picked up, while Jim looked like he'd had a memorable encounter with a coal mine.

Despite how unsanitary they were, the doctors had insisted they be brought to the infirmary immediately (along with everyone else who lived near them, Jim would notice later). Once the boys' faces, arms, and hands were scrubbed clean, they were presented with food and water and a battery of tests.

"Why did they take all those blood samples?" Kevin asked the doctor at one point.

She didn't look up from taking Jim's pulse for the third time since their arrival. "We have to check a lot of things. Getting you healthy again is very important."

When she left to get something, Kevin looked askance at Jim. "Lying, or lying?"

"Lying," he agreed.

* * *

His mother was the one to tell him. She kept the explanation short and to the point; he had a virus in him that wasn't going to make him sick right now, but might in the future, and the doctors were going to have to do a lot of work to remove it. No, his aunt and uncle weren't sick. Later he would find out that only one hundred and seven of the eight hundred-odd colonists in N-block were infected; much later than that, McCoy would explain it was because CZV was poorly designed (to the relief of every doctor everywhere).

He took it in stride at the time, because words like 'genomic insertion' and 'incurable' weren't floated, though with good reason: until it activated for the first time, they wouldn't know the exact nature of what they were dealing with. Although Kevin moved back to London, he and Jim kept in touch.

Three months before his eighteenth birthday Jim had his first positive test. (Kevin's would come two years later.) The news wasn't good, and this time he was old enough to really grasp what he was being told. The doctors still avoided calling it 'terminal', but it was clear that if he wanted to have any hope of making it past thirty, he'd have to spend a lot of time as a lab rat.

He moved out two days after his birthday, because there was no way in hell he would spend whatever years he had left anywhere near Frank.

* * *

Kevin, they discovered, was a perfect candidate for a radical removal of the virus: it had infected his immune system, which meant they could do a bone marrow transplant from a donor that was immune to the virus. It was an old technique, used in centuries past to deal with other immuno-infecting viruses. After the transplant, Kevin's count dropped to zero, and he never tested positive again.

Jim wasn't so lucky. His infection was in his dorsal root ganglia-not exactly something they could replace, though a prominent Virologist, Dr. Afua Sage, was hard at work to find some way to address the problem. Her tireless efforts produced numerous medications and antiviral drugs, as well as several methods for curing the varying infections, including the one used on Kevin. Unfortunately, as the years went by, she came no closer to a way to help the case group Jim belonged to.

Kevin joined Starfleet, and Jim wished him well. It was a relief for Jim to know at least one of them would survive Tarsus IV in the long run, and if he had to pick, it would have been Kevin. Starfleet needed people like him.

* * *

On the day of his hearing for the _Kobayashi-Maru_ debacle, he couldn't help but admire the great irony that he should be on the receiving end of a speech about no-win scenarios, cheating death, and accepting fear in the face of inevitability. Right up until the Ambassador mind-melded with him he harbored a childish, spiteful hope that Spock would feel shitty, or at the very least stupid, on that day in the near future when he read the report describing how James T. Kirk, the last victim of of the Tarsus IV disaster, had succumbed to a an incurable infection he'd harbored for much of his short life.

Years later, when the virus had reached progression and his daily count began its inexorable climb, and Spock was his friend rather than the condescending instructor who almost got him kicked out of the Academy, he regretted that hope, short-lived as it was, and wondered when or how he was supposed to tell him.


	3. The End of Silence - Ch 3

He would never forget the day he told McCoy.

Once he was certain McCoy had been assigned CMO for the _Enterprise_, Jim ambushed him during one of the ship's preprep missions.

"What's this?" McCoy asked, taking the tablet Jim handed him.

"My medical records."

"I have your medical records, I have _everyone's_ medical records."

"You don't have all of mine."

McCoy gave Jim a suspicious look, then began paging through the reports and charts. He was some time in reading all of them, after which he looked more tired than anything else. "This is really you."

"Yeah."

"You're one of those cases they teach in medschool. That they put on all the virology exams."

"That's me."

McCoy's sigh was explosive. "Just my luck." He massaged one temple. "Alright, so, we need to have the SKS series and SV-100 on board, what else?"

"SN-20."

"I thought they only use that at end-stage now." He swiped to a table. "You're not even over one hundred yet."

"There's no telling when my levels might jump, and it's the fastest way to get them back down."

"Except if we use that they'll rebound even higher. Jim, SN-20's only a first generation antiviral, it's not-"

"We could find ourselves in a position where we won't have a choice."

"You mean you could _put_ yourself in a position where we won't have a choice?" Jim didn't reply. McCoy's jaw clenched. "SV-100 is safer."

"I know. We need that too. But I want SN-20 available."

Spock's voice interrupted them over the comm. "Commander Spock to Med Bay."

"What," McCoy snapped. There was a notable pause, during which Jim raised his eyebrows at McCoy. "Sorry. McCoy here."

"Is something wrong, Doctor?"

Jim gave Bones a warning look. For a second, he was sure McCoy would say something, then McCoy replied, "Nothing more than usual, Commander. Though if you could get Medical to release the rest of those vaccines my day would get a lot better in a hurry."

"I will look into that, Doctor."

Jim mouthed a thank you to Bones, who gestured for him to get out. Jim retreated to Engineering, where Scotty had been trying to get him to show up for days, and tried not to think about how he needed to tell Spock.

* * *

Their first handful of missions passed without incident. Even the particularly frustrating Mudd situation didn't prove a problem; he remained steady at one hundred, with no symptoms. He started to wonder if he might make it all the way to old age with a deadly virus lurking quietly inside him, quiescent like a dormant black hole.

Two months before Daystrom his count started to creep up. At first it seemed like the usual variation in levels, but eventually McCoy was forced to admit that the rise was steady and had all the hallmarks of a progressing CZV infection. It wasn't clear when he'd hit the downhill slope, but the rate made for grim estimates. Jim got particularly drunk the night Bones gave him that news; the following day's hangover was definitely in his top five worst ever.

He took to counting the days until Medical would force him off the ship. Four months, maybe seven if he plateaued a few times as was common in the IIC infections.

Three weeks before Nibiru his count topped two hundred. Medical required him to take an SV-100 series that had him out sick for a week (the official excuse was an off-world flu that wasn't responding to standard medication), though it did get his levels back down to one-fifty.

Then his count spiked after Daystrom, and to top it off, he died from acute radiation exposure a few days after that.


	4. The End of Silence - Ch 4

Jim sagged into his bed, resisting the urge to vomit all over Spock. The pain was receding like a tide; it would seem worse, fall back, then return with less force only to withdraw once more. He timed his breaths to the waves until they had died down enough to let him hear what McCoy was saying.

"...bone marrow right now. It's growing back. As soon as you've got an immune system again, no more of these."

"These?" he asked, feeling dazed. Spock helped him into a more comfortable position on the bed while McCoy adjusted the settings on his medications.

"That's not the last one of those you're getting."

He rolled his head to give Spock a sullen glare. "You saved my life so he could torture me."

Spock didn't dignify the accusation with a reply, though Jim was sure he saw some Vulcan variant of 'I might have' in his eyes. Next to him, McCoy said, "Alright, Spock, that's it for now, and I know Admiral Chutani is searching high and low for you, so get out."

Spock hesitated, and McCoy looked up from his task. "I said get out. If you're here there's no way this idiot's gonna sleep."

"I just slept for two w-"

"Shut it." McCoy jerked his head at the door, and Spock gave Jim another look-this one was sympathy, he was sure-and said, "Of course, doctor. Please contact me if you require anything."

"Don't worry, I will."

Once Spock was gone, McCoy picked up the tablet that had been sitting on the bedstand next to Jim's bed. He scrolled through the data, peering at this and that and muttering to himself.

Jim laid there, savoring being awake. The immune booster had left the room wobbling and his stomach wasn't a fan either, but breathing and thinking felt so novel he didn't mind so much now that the pain was receding (later he would learn Bones was giving him enough pain killers to fell a horse). Still, there was another thing to attend to; some unfinished business that had been bugging him since he'd opened his eyes and found Spock and McCoy peering at him. He couldn't stand not knowing anymore, and figured Bones hadn't brought it up yet because coming back to life just to die in a few months was a serious let down.

"So. Where am I at."

McCoy glanced up from the tablet. "At?"

"My count."

McCoy mmmm'd and swept at the tablet. "That's the most interesting part. Since you went into the coma, all of your tests have been negative."

The room seemed to crystalize around him. After a few nerve-wracking seconds, Jim decided he wasn't dreaming. "That can't be right."

"That's what _I_ said. But I've run the tests six ways from Sunday, and they've all come up clean. Every last one. Even that hypersensitive one they made for keeping an eye on the really low-expressing people? Zip."

McCoy offered him the tablet, but Jim found he lacked the strength to hold it, so settled for letting it rest on his lap. He had just enough motor coordination and energy to flip through the results. "The serum?"

"Maybe. Maybe the radiation. Maybe both. I don't think we'll ever know for sure, since they're not going to let me make more of it any time soon, and I didn't think to get a nerve biopsy before I used it."

He sat there, trying to take the news in. "How long does my count have to be zero for it to be a done deal?"

"Honestly, given how CZV works? It'll never be a done deal. But that doesn't matter much-if you don't have virus expressing in your system, then you're not dying. It's that simple."

"So. I'm..."

"'In remission', is what goes into your file," McCoy supplied as he plucked the tablet from Jim's slack hands. "And until you test positive again, you're good to go."

_Dumb fucking luck._

* * *

Kevin was the first person he told. Really, he was one of the only people to tell, because the records had been sealed and Pike and Marcus were both dead, and of course Bones already knew.

"You've got to be kidding," Kevin said, and he grabbed Jim into a hug without hesitation, which Jim returned. They stood there on sidewalk outside the coffee shop, both near tears with the disorienting giddiness that accompanied a commuted death sentence.

Once they separated, Kevin cleared his throat and spent a second pulling himself together. "Sorry, it's just-when I got your message I was sure that..." He stopped, and Jim wondered if Kevin felt like he did: that giving voice to the possibility would bring it back into being, despite everything.

"Yeah." Jim wiped at his eyes. "It ah, almost was, actually. But then they figured something out."

"God, how the hell did they do it? Did McCoy manage some wild eleventh hour save?"

"More like half past midnight." Kevin gave him a puzzled look, and Jim shook his head. "They don't want me to talk about it, since it wasn't a sanctioned thing."

Kevin blinked. "You mean-it was an alien race's solution?"

"Sort of. It's complicated."

Kevin threw his head back and laughed. "Jim Kirk, is anything _not_ complicated when it comes to you."

"Tell me about it." He gestured at the coffee shop, and they went inside, because it was cold as hell (damn San Francisco's spring, or lack thereof).

Once they were seated in a corner table with their coffee, Kevin asked, "So then you're alright? I mean-you're in remission? Officially?"

"Officially."

"That's brilliant, though. Do you think they'll give you a five-year after all?"

"Maybe. I guess now that it's not hanging around my neck anymore."

Kevin nodded and sipped at his drink. "Well look, if they do, I have a list of highly qualified students that's about a mile long, and I'll submit as many of them as our friendship will tolerate."

"Students? Why wouldn't I just bring you and your lab?"

Kevin almost fumbled his mug. "What?"

"I'm serious."

"Wh-do you think you could get your Science Officer to go along with that?"

"Positive," Jim said into his mug.

"I mean-five years in space." Kevin set his drink down and let out a shaky breath. He ran his hands over his locs as he thought, and Jim remembered how the dust on Tarsus IV had driven Kevin's parents to shave his head the entire time they'd lived there. (Sometimes he thought the locs were Kevin's own personal response to everything they'd endured.) "You're serious. My entire lab, all of them? Even the students?"

"Even the students."

Kevin stared at him for several seconds before saying, "Well, let me talk to Atiseh about it, but-for my part, absolutely."

Jim smiled, and thought to himself, _Living starts now._


	5. The End of Silence - Ch 5

He spent half a year arguing with himself about whether or not he should tell Spock. (Jim was sure there wasn't a single person in all of the galaxy who was a bigger fan of 'More Mystery, Less History' than himself.) He came to the conclusion he would tell Spock when a natural chance to do so arose not much more than an hour before one did.

He and Spock were pouring over the status reports on the _Enterprise_'s refitting-at long last, it was nearing completion-when he stumbled across a folder on his tablet. "Oh, hey-I was rereading these proposals, the ones you put together at the beginning of the year."

Spock was no stranger to Jim bringing things up out of the blue accompanied by little or no context. "The science proposals for inclusion on the ship's missions?"

"Yeah. Could we get updates on all of these? I don't mean full resubmissions, just, where everyone's at." Spock nodded, and Jim resumed paging through them. "And tell Riley in Biotech to submit one."

"Dr. Kevin Riley?"

"Yeah."

"His lab is particularly well established, I am not certain he will agree to move it onto a starship."

"He will. I already talked to him about it." Spock gave him an exasperated look and Jim raised a hand in placation. "I'm not going around you, Spock, he's an old friend. I figured I could talk him into it. It's good for Starfleet, good for the ship, and it'd be good for him too."

Spock took notes. A handful of minutes passed with them each reading in silence. Then, "I am curious, Captain-"

"Jim."

"Jim. How is it that you know Dr. Riley? It was my understanding he joined Starfleet earlier than you, shortly after his postdoctoral work with Professor Reddy was complete. Yet he is from London, originally, and you grew up in Iowa."

He could make something up, or he could come clean. Jim steeled himself and looked up from the reports. "We did some growing up together. On Tarsus IV."

Spock lowered his tablet. "I was not aware you had ever lived on Tarsus IV in any capacity."

"That'd be because those records are sealed."

"I see." Jim waited for him to do the various mental calculations needed to put it all together. It didn't take long, yet the resulting silence was a hundred times more unnerving than anything Jim had ever experienced at Pike's hands. Right about when he didn't think he could take it anymore, Spock asked, "Were you among the infected?"

Jim let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding until just then. "Yeah." After a pause, he added, "We both were. He was a Type I. I was a II."

"You speak of this in the past tense."

"They found a way to wipe out Kevin's infection about six years ago. Used it to save a few of the other Type IIs, actually. But they never did come up with anything for a IIC." He cleared his throat. "I was the last one. Something about having an innate resistance to it; they've been pouring over all of our test results for years, trying to figure it out. And then there was this whole thing with the serum, and now it's gone."

"Gone?"

"My last three sets of tests were all negative. McCoy's pretty sure it's been wiped out. They've put me down as 'in remission'."

"That includes a full sequencing of the-"

"Yes."

Spock's expression had gone blank. He set his tablet aside, got up, and moved over to one of the windows. "Why did you choose to not tell me?"

Jim sighed and got up from his desk, walking around it in an attempt to work out the nervous energy coiling up in him. "What was there to tell? 'Sorry, I'm gonna die on you any month now, don't hold your breath'?" He paused to give his friend's back a sour look. "Besides, you'd've just had them to chain me to a desk."

"It is true I would have lobbied against a position which could only bring you under stress that might in turn accelerate your illness' progression."

Jim groaned and rolled his eyes. "You don't say."

Spock turned back to him, and Jim was ashamed to see genuine hurt flash in his eyes, if only for a second. "You are quite cavalier about your own survival."

He wasn't sure which hit harder: the realization that he'd just been dismissive of Spock's concerns for him, or that in doing so, he'd hurt someone who'd fought to save him from himself. He looked down at his desk and felt along the woodgrain for a distraction from the shock of that understanding and everything that came with it. His reaction was complicated, and if he was going to say something, he had to get it right. Spock waited, the essence of patience itself.

Jim was some time in finding the right words. "I didn't have a survival to think about until six months ago. I was gonna die and there was nothing, absolutely _nothing_, anyone could do about it." He was surprised to find it painful, all these months later, to remember how he'd felt after McCoy had given him the antiviral that would buy him a handful of days at the expense of the rest of his life. He waited for the feeling to pass before continuing.

"Living my life in as limited a way as possible just to squeeze out a few extra months at the end? That never made any sense to me. I wanted to cram every experience I could get into whatever time I had. I wasn't going to live like someone who was already dead."

He couldn't bring himself to look at Spock, so took his turn staring out a window; he chose an adjacent wall that faced Starfleet headquarters. Even with the _Vengeance_ gone he thought he could feel her shadow lingering over San Francisco; it was a feeling he could relate to. "I know that's made me pretty...short sighted, and reckless." He remembered his last real conversation with Pike. "And careless. And that's all going to stop." He took a deep breath and let it out. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you."

The silence was brittle and stretched for a handful of seconds. Then, Spock said, "Perhaps now is a good time to begin making plans for the future."

It was as much an acceptance of his apology as he could expect. Jim risked a look back, and was relieved to see Spock had traded his frustration for resolve and a small gleam of hope. "I am," he insisted. "Starting with trying to get a five-year mission out of them."

"You wish to give them a complete proposal with a handful of preselected research and exploration groups to show you are serious about the venture and believe they should be as well."

"Exactly."

"Professor Riley is widely recognized as the best in his field. He and his lab would be an excellent addition to the staff. And if I am not mistaken, his wife is a skilled computer engineer, and would make a strong addition to the Engineering crew." Spock put his hands behind his back, adopting a somewhat formal posture. "Jim."

Jim braced himself. "Yeah."

"As I am the Commander of the _Enterprise_," Spock paused as if to consider something, then continued, "as well as your friend, if you could, in the future, not keep such important information regarding your health from me, I would appreciate it."

Relief washed over him. "I don't plan on having that kind of important information about my health ever again, but it's a deal."

Though one could never be certain with Spock, Jim thought he looked reassured as he moved back to his seat and took up his tablet. "I will begin contacting the primary investigators right away."

Jim sat back down at his desk and began earmarking proposals. "And I'll get an appointment with Admiral Chutani set up for us."

"Us?"

"Yes, us, there is no way I'm presenting this alone. Plus, you're the Science Officer, it'll look better if you're there."

"Of course."

Jim glanced up to find Spock had already gone back to his tablet. He thought for a minute that there was something else he should say, then decided against it. No need to cover every single base right this second.

There would be plenty of time for that if they landed a five-year mission, after all.


	6. Bravado - Ch 1

**Notes**

I'd intended these next two for a sequel to _The End of Silence_, then I realized they really should have been part of it. But I said it was complete, so here they are, as some coda chapters.

* * *

The sharp, piercing pain in his throat was a symptom he'd been warned about, and it had been worsening for the last three hours as he oversaw their less-than-majestic return from defeating Nero. The scratchiness was bad enough now that drinking water wasn't helping, and McCoy was giving him sideways glances any time he cleared his throat.

An entire childhood spent evading Frank's abuse had taught him some tricks, though, and he managed to get himself on a transport to Medical a half-hour after their arrival with no one the wiser. He shut off his communicator as the shuttle ascended, and tried to think of a reasonable excuse to give Bones should he need to.

He took a second to wipe at his watering eyes and compose himself before approaching the desk at the Trauma Center. The last thing he needed or wanted was a scene. "I need to speak to Dr. M'Benga."

The Andorian receptionist looked up from her tablet. "I'm not sure I've seen him recently, but I can contact him-whom should I say it is?"

"Jim Kirk." He swallowed against a cough. "Tell him it's important."

Her eyes swept over him in a quick assessment, and she definitely didn't like what she saw. "Would you like me to contact the on-call attending? They could-"

"No, just-it needs to be him."

"I'll send the message right away."

He nodded and found a water dispenser, then a chair to sit in while he nursed his cup. M'Benga was looming over him in less than four minutes.

"Don't you look fantastic," he said. His voice was dryer than usual.

"I feel fantastic too." Jim got up, moving with care; he felt like anything was going to start a coughing spasm. M'Benga nodded his thanks to the receptionist as he led Jim back to an examination room. As soon as the door was shut he had a tablet and his tri-corder out. Jim settled onto the bed and breathed as steadily as he could manage.

"How long's it been like this?"

"A few hours." At M'Benga's exasperated look, Jim said, "I got here as quick as I could. They had to tow us back from the middle of nowhere."

"Problem with your warp core?"

"Used it to escape a black hole."

"Now that sounds like a truly stressful situation." M'Benga grimaced at whatever his tablet showed him and set it aside. He pulled out his communicator. "Jorge, I need an SKS series in Exam 4W, double-time."

"On my way, Doctor."

Jim sighed, then regretted it when it caused the pain to spread through his chest. M'Benga stared at him, and Jim averted his eyes.

"You know this is just the start, right? You're not even in progression yet. It only gets worse from here on out. You have one of these attacks then, and it's not going to set on in a few hours-you'll have a half-hour, tops."

"I know." He hadn't meant to sound dismissive, but M'Benga's eyes hardened.

"Do you really? Because I'm not sure you've thought about how this is going to play out."

"I'm not dropping out of Command. We've been over this."

"Oh, I didn't think you would. I just wanted it clear that the first time you have an episode after you're in progression, I'm going to recommend they take you off whatever ship you're on and sit your ass on a station or planet-side-whichever's more capable of holding you." His voice never rose above it's usual pleasant tenor, yet M'Benga put a wealth of frustration into each word.

Jim nodded his understanding and tried to convey how contrite he felt with a simple, "Yeah."

M'Benga huffed a breath and seemed somewhat mollified. There was a knock on the door, then a young physician (presumably Jorge) came in, tray of color-coded injection vials in hand. M'Benga loaded up the first one and sent Jorge off to the lab with a blood sample.

"Just so it's clear," M'Benga said as he gave Jim the first shot, "I'm not blaming you for wanting to live your life your own way for as long as you can. The only one to blame is the bastard who did this."

Jim winced and gripped the bed. It was almost as bad as McCoy's vaccine, except there would be far more than just one of these. "Yeah. If they ever find them, I plan to have words."

"Words?" M'Benga moved on to the next shot. "If I were in your position I'd be inclined to use my fists."

"Those come after the words."

M'Benga barked a short laugh. "Be sure to save some for me."

"I'll try to remember to." Jim swallowed; the shots were getting more and more painful.

"Just three more. You're doing great." Another shot. Jim reminded himself to breathe. "After this, I want you to lie down, drink as much water as you reasonably can, and eat at least one serving of broth. Then you can go."

Through gritted teeth, Jim said, "Only if you have something other than that terrible fish crap."

"I hear we have beef broth lately. Last one."

It was easily the worst shot he'd ever had. Jim exhaled sharply, and M'Benga helped him lie back on the bed. "This, is how you plan to convince me, to drop Command."

"It's an idea I've been toying with." M'Benga disappeared out the door for a brief spell, then returned with a pitcher and a glass of ice water. "Drink."

He stood there watching while Jim managed half the glass, and immediately refilled it. "I'll send someone by with the broth. I'd better not find out it disappeared down the sink, or someone else received a generous second helping."

"You won't." M'Benga frowned at him, and Jim raised a hand in placation. "I mean I'll eat it."

M'Benga made a low sound of agreement and turned to go, and Jim said, "Thanks."

M'Benga looked back over his shoulder. "You want to thank me? Get yourself through this."

Jim found he could only reply with a nod. It must have been convincing, because M'Benga gave him a final once-over, then left.

Jim let his head fall back against the bed. As he drifted in and out of a medication-induced haze, he hoped he could figure out a way to make good on that.


	7. Bravado - Ch 2

Pike was the only one to ambush him about it. (Unless you counted the initial news from his mother, which he didn't.) Admirals had access to that section of his medical records, and Pike had just been made Admiral, so later he would kick himself for not realizing it was coming and preparing what he'd say.

Being made Acting-Captain didn't get him out of graduating, and he'd been jogging in between exams to keep his nerves down. He was out on one such excursion when his communicator beeped. It was Pike, and it was important, as in right now, and he was willing to wait for Jim to shower but that was it. He was quick about it, and threw on his cadet's uniform, and made it to the now-Admiral's office in under twenty minutes, which was a personal best.

He knew something was up, because Pike wasn't a master at concealing his intentions, and there was a brittleness to him that had nothing to do with his continued recovery. He was still using the wheelchair more often than not, but he greeted Jim at the door standing, then sat down and rolled himself behind his desk. There was a tablet on his desk with something open that Jim couldn't make out from where he stood.

"I hear you had a perfect score on your Xenobiology exam."

He'd always figured Pike was tracking his grades. It was nice to be right. "Yes sir. Professor t'Orim is an excellent teacher."

"You planning on acing all of them?"

"I'd certainly like to, sir, but I suspect someone other than me will get the top score in Applied Mathematics."

"Well, I'd appreciate it if you'd try particularly hard on that one, seeing as that's where I put my money."

Jim had no idea what to say to that. It was possible Pike was joking, because the idea that the Admiralty had a betting pool on who was going to get top scores was as comical as it was believable, but everything else about this meeting rang of harsh sincerity to him. "I'll make sure to attend all of the extra study sessions, sir."

"Good." Pike leaned back in his chair. "So. When were you going to tell me."

Kirk still had no idea what this was actually about, and while there were a lot of people he could bullshit ignorance with, Pike wasn't on that list. In fact he was on the opposite list, so Kirk stuck with honesty and let his confusion show. "Sir?"

"About your condition."

The room suddenly felt a good ten degrees colder. Jim had to expend real effort to keep his hands from forming into fists. "I've been advised, and explicitly asked, sir, to not disclose it to anyone who's not my assigned medical officer or-"

"Or an Admiral."

"Yes, sir." Jim felt a little bit guilty; this was Pike, after all. "In my defense, sir, you only just made Admiral last week."

"I meant _before_ I made Admiral, Jim. Your file says you've known about this since you were thirteen." He shoved his tablet aside and rolled around to the front of his desk. "Why did you pick Command?"

"Sir?"

"Stress, physical and mental, is the number one factor in determining longevity of a CZV case. So why Command."

"I think you know why, sir."

Pike looked taken aback. He sighed and rubbed his face. "I didn't mean you should enlist and pick a track regardless of any other considerations."

"Sir, do you mean if you'd known about this back then, you wouldn't have told me to enlist?" He couldn't keep the betrayal out of his voice, and he saw Pike hear it.

"I'd have suggested you pick something _other_ than Command."

"Why, sir."

"Because Command is guaranteed to put you in the worst possible situation for what you're dealing with. You're the only surviving member of your cohort, and until they find a way to cure this thing you have to be careful."

_I have so many things in common with dead people_. "There's no guarantee they'll ever find a cure, sir. And if they don't and I die of it anyways I've sat around waiting when I could have spent whatever time I had left doing what I _wanted_ to."

"Operations or Science aren't exactly sitting around, Kirk."

"With all due respect, I think you know what I meant, sir."

That was treading on thin ice, and Pike let him know it with a steely glare, then rolled himself back behind his desk. "Unfortunately for me, Dr. M'Benga agrees with you."

Jim blinked. "Admiral?"

"I talked to him first. He's not of the opinion we have the right to force you to change tracks unless you're not physically capable of doing the one you're in. Which, right now, isn't the case."

Relief mixed with unease. It was good to have Dr. M'Benga on his side, in the doctor's own 'I won't take any of your shit, cadet' way, but he wanted Pike in his corner too-needed him, really, because the Academy was overflowing with people just waiting for George Kirk's son to fail to live up to his father's high bar. And though he sensed this was something on which he and Pike weren't going to agree no matter how much Jim wanted them too, that didn't dissuade him from wanting to try. "Sir, permission to speak freely?"

Pike made him wait for it, and Jim was a model cadet for those heavy, uncertain seconds. When Pike nodded, Jim said, "I have every intention, Admiral, of monitoring my condition closely, and the minute I am outside of acceptable tolerances for Command I will step down and accept whatever assignment Starfleet gives me. Dr. M'Benga has also assured me that, if I don't do it, he will." Pike said nothing. Jim resisted the urge to move in any way. "Until such time, sir, I feel that Command is the best use of my skills, and taking a different track in hopes of gaining a few more months is a detriment to myself, and to Starfleet."

Pike's expression shifted from irritated to resigned. (And maybe Jim was imagining it, but he thought there might be sadness too.) He gazed out his window. "I guess it's the height of presumption to tell someone how to live their life, especially if they're only doing what _you_ suggested."

Without really thinking about it, Jim said, "I think what you suggested is the best thing to ever happen to me, sir."

Pike looked askance at him, eyebrows raised, and Jim held his gaze against the implication. Pike turned back to his desk. He tapped at his display and sent something off to somewhere. "I would strongly recommend," he glanced up, and his eyes implied this wasn't actually a recommendation, "that you request Dr. M'Benga as a medical officer on whichever ship you wind up with."

"I will, sir."

"And if he's _not_ the CMO, you need to inform whomever is as well."

Jim knew that Pike meant McCoy, but he was still surprised to hear him say it. "Yes, sir. I will."

"Dismissed, cadet."

Jim hesitated, feeling like there was more he needed to say, but nothing that felt worthwhile was forthcoming. He nodded and said, "Thank you, Admiral," and quit the office at a measured pace when what he wanted to do was run.

He felt Pike's eyes on his back until the door shut.


End file.
